Recipe of the week
Crawfish Étouffée
A dark-roux étouffée over rice — one pot, forty minutes, deeply Acadiana. The trinity does the heavy lifting; the crawfish fat does the rest.
40 min · Serves 4–6
Ingredients
- 1 lb Louisiana crawfish tails (with fat)
- ½ cup butter · ½ cup flour
- 1 onion, 1 bell pepper, 2 celery ribs — diced (the trinity)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups seafood or chicken stock
- 2 tsp Cajun seasoning · hot sauce to taste
- 3 green onions + parsley, chopped
- Cooked white rice
Method
- 1
Melt the butter in a heavy pot and whisk in the flour. Stir over medium heat until the roux is the color of peanut butter — don't walk away.
- 2
Add the trinity and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic for one more.
- 3
Slowly whisk in the stock. Simmer until it thickens to a gravy, about 10 minutes.
- 4
Fold in the crawfish tails (and every bit of their fat), the seasoning, and hot sauce. Simmer 8–10 minutes — never a hard boil.
- 5
Finish with green onions and parsley. Serve over rice with extra hot sauce on the table.